Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely.
This publishes Sunday through Thursday with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).

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14.6.12

Signing one, vetoing other rebate bill aids public education

Those legislators with an interest in maximizing government control
grumbled somewhat when state Rep. Kirk Talbot’s HB 969
got put into law, which would allow tax rebates for donations to organizations
that would help pay for tuition of lower-income students to private schools.
Some responded by getting behind HB 1106
by state Rep. Katrina
Jackson, which would allow tax rebates for donations to all but the most
successful public schools. Their discontent reached new heights when Gov. Bobby
Jindal, in contrast to Talbot’s bill, vetoed Jackson’s – as it is, for very
good reasons beyond what he stated.

That perturbed
the bill’s author, among others, who declared, with a flair for the inaccurate
and sanctimonious, that this had been the only bill out there “which truly
helps our public schools to receive much needed resources.” Jindal’s veto
message noted that the initial $10 million that the program could cost was
unfunded (and by the bill could have created an unfunded mandate by escalating
every year). That practical objection aside, there was a huge conceptual objection
to it as well, related to the differences between the monopoly and market
natures of the different approaches to providing education to the state’s
children.

Talbot’s bill provides incentives to donate money to independent organizations
although affiliated with private schools that could use the money only as
direct awards to families for their children to attend those schools, with
preference if demand exceeds supply given to those who would otherwise have
attended an underperforming public school. Accountability measures put in place
in the new law, which will be supplemented by departmental rules, minimize
opportunities to subvert the system on the basis of favoritism to families for
reasons of friendship, athletic ability, etc. (but does allow earmarking on the
basis of disability). The schools do not get the money directly, which is
capped at only 80 or 90 percent of the aid given to public schools for each
child, and are not shielded in any way from market forces; you can have all the
money in the world flowing into the organization but if families are turned off
in having their children attend the associated school, it doesn’t get these
funds (and donors who do not have their dollars used can request a refund minus
the five percent allowed overhead charge), and donations would decrease to
these organizations until the schools improved.

Contrast this with Jackson’s bill. In it, money goes directly to
schools although they are restricted in the ways they can use so they don’t go
out and do things like buy a fleet of luxury vehicles for their administrators.
Regardless, it subverts the accountability mechanisms because it directs state
dollars – 75 percent of the value of the donation that does not get collected
in taxes that could have gone to other purposes – to schools without any
connection to accountability at all. Recall that, unlike with private schools
where the market provides built-in accountability and thereby moots the need
for such state regulation, the state’s measures are designed to mimic in an
indirect way the natural accountability afforded by the marketplace and apply
that to the monopoly environment of public education.

Thus, under Jackson’s bill, a badly performing school could have, in
essence, extra state money going to prop up a superstructure propagating
failure, when, if that money were to be collected by the state on the basis of
need and accountability, it should have gone to subsidize instead activities of
demonstrated success. Naturally enough, the crippling theoretical flaw of this
bill was that money solved all education woes. It does not, as any cursory look
at statistics comparing financing and achievement shows. Much more important
are factors such as a school’s leadership or a commitment by school boards and
central offices to put, for example, academic achievement ahead of patronage.

It’s attitude that precedes money in understanding academic success. The
market in which private schools must compete orders this properly: public money
follows families who allocate it on the basis of school achievement. Thus,
state dollars flow to their best and most efficient use in improving both
private and public education: subsidizing the best of the former, and thereby
forcing the latter to improve to keep its resources by preventing defection of
its students to the private/nonprofit sector. The monopoly that government
protects for public schools, ameliorated only somewhat by accountability
measures, does not do this: public money follows the school regardless of its
merit, with no guarantee that it is used best and most efficiently.

Turning Minimum Foundation Program funds over to schools largely
unrelated to their merits is appropriate because its purpose is to provide the
funds to cover a basic education. Then some schools will do that, others will
go above the norm, while others will fail to meet it – and would regardless of
how much money they get because the problem lies in the bureaucratic structures,
organizational cultures, and attitudes of those governing and working in it. So
if the state is going to commit extra money to education (regardless whether it
is performed publicly or privately) beyond what, with competent use of it, should
be enough to provide a basic education for all, it should do it in a way that maximizes
enhancement of success and minimizes chances of failure.

The philosophy of HB 969 accomplishes that; that of HB 1106 did not.
Thus Jindal’s signing of the former and vetoing of the latter was on solid conceptual
grounds. To claim this conduct does not help public school or even shows some
kind of animus to public schooling when it instead demonstrates the exact
opposite tells us those making the claim do not understand how the world works
nor the human beings who inhabit it.

Well, Professor, speaking of vetoes and like matters, it was quite a week.

The Scorecard, the "Ruthless One", has stepped up one of his prime management styles - that is, take quick, absolute retribution on every one that differs even a little with him or displeases him.

Lets see; it started with Rep. Jim Morris, who was stripped on his committee vice chairmanship. Voted wrong and disagreed with the Scorecard.

Then, he vetoed the Treasurer's appropriations to pay his employer contributions for his employees retirement benefits - and touched no other agency's appropriations for the same purpose. His sin: publicly disagreeing with the Ruthless One's position on continuing to spend one-time, non-recurring revenues of recurring, operating expenses.

Next, the Lt. Governor got two more million dollars chopped from his budget. His mistake: Publicly expressing displeasure with budget cuts backed by the Scorecard.

Then, I read that the Ruthless One's Secretary of Revenue resigned (translation: Resign today or we will publicly can you tomorrow)on Friday. Her reputation: a very competent and fair administrator, who served three governors. The paper said she did something the Scorecard did not like.

Then, there is Rep. Armes, Rep. Barrow and Sen. Erdy - all who had bills vetoed because they said they disagreed with or did not vote with the Ruthless One.

Read the veto messages and justifications for these. They would be funny if these actions were not so alarming. They are transparently insincere and adolescent. They are about the only thing regarding the Ruthless One or his office that IS transparent, though!

Look forward to your apologies/justifications for this. Must be excellent governing in some way that I cannot recognize or understand.

I'm going to attempt a rendition of every single Jeff Sadow post. Here goes... 1. Jindal is righteous and pure, but someone just said something critical about him, and I'm not going to let it stand.2. The person who said something critical is either (a) childish and naive, or (b) a hateful monster.4. [skip over all meaningful aspects of whatever the issue is that is the subject]5. insert a reference to a study, or make up something to make me sound the the level-headed one in a sea of partisans.6. refer to non-existent flaw in a non-existent cartoon version of "liberalism" from the vantage point of a hysterical Fox News-worshipper from Shreveport.7. Flowery ending that hypes Jindal even more than Jindal himself would be comfortable with.

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